Before You Go
Before You Go is a love story between father and son – of their love of football and of Stevenage FC.
By award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster John Aizlewood.
This compelling book offers a unique, fresh adventure into the heart and soul of lower-league football, as seen through the eyes of a vastly experienced, well-travelled football writer and his teenage son:
- John and his 14-year-old son, Oscar, attend every Stevenage FC – aka Boro – game of the 2024/25 season, home and away, league and cups, the narrative flowing from Stevenage FC’s season
- They travel by car, train and coach – and they explore every location they visit, whether they’re eating Blackpool’s finest fish’n’chips or smelling Rotherham’s indoor market
- They stand on the grave of a queen, they shout themselves hoarse, they gaze in wonder at team buses, they marvel at Stonehenge, squabble about tactics and about each other, and they eat too many culinarily challenged pies
- The book provides a cultural snapshot of England (and Wrexham) in 2024 and ’25 – the fixture list decides where they go, but each location has its own story
Before You Go is not only the saga of a season in the life of the smallest club in League One. It’s also the story of a father and son bonding and sharing their lives through football, before Oscar takes his GCSEs and goes on to become a man and before John moves, rather more reluctantly, into later life.
Before You Go is John Aizlewood’s fifth book. Previously the author of Love Is The Drug, Playing At Home, Decades: Joy Division + New Order and Radiohead: Life In A Glasshouse, John has written about sport for more than 20 years for the nation’s most prestigious newspapers. He currently writes for a host of publications including The Times/Sunday Times, Daily/Sunday Telegraph, the i paper, Radio Times, Mojo and Classic Rock.